Phew, What A Scorcher! Fried-eggs-on-the-pavement weather – what we used to call ‘summer’ – has arrived early this year. So what could be more refreshing than an ice cold shower first thing in the morning?
Which is probably just as well, since we haven’t had any hot water for a week.
Yes, I know World War Three is breaking out and back home the country is going to hell in a handcart under Labour.
But we can do little about any of that, except pontificate endlessly to no avail, which I can’t be bothered to read, let alone write about.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, it’s sweating the small stuff which sends us bonkers. And I do mean sweating.
Take our immersion heater. It broke down last Friday and thus far has resisted all efforts by the good people at British Gas to fix it.
Engineer 1 turned up on the dot on Saturday, disappeared into the attic and half an hour later pronounced job done. Something to do with the wiring, apparently. Give it a couple of hours and Bob’s your mother’s brother. He couldn’t hang around to check, though, as he was snowed under and had driven over from Watford because no one in the Barnet area was working at the weekend.
Three hours later, the water temperature was still set at ‘Brass Monkey’.
Our immersion heater broke down last Friday and thus far has resisted all efforts by the good people at British Gas to fix it, writes Richard Littlejohn
Hit the British Gas website, which insisted on telling me: ‘Something’s gone wrong.’ I’d worked that out for myself. Did manage to find an emergency phone number, which I called, only to be put through to a woman in Sri Lanka (or somewhere else where they speak English as a second or third language) who had no idea what I was talking about and tried to sell me a smart meter.
Eventually, I managed to locate a delightful lady supervisor in South Wales who sounded like the barmaid from the Little Britain ‘Only Gay In The Village’ sketch. She apologised profusely, explaining that the website had been on the blink for a couple of months and, anyway, the emergency number they give out online is wrong. Lovely, tidy, smashing.
She couldn’t have been more helpful, mind you, giving me the right number and booking in another engineer for Sunday afternoon. So far, so promising.
Sunday afternoon about 4pm I get a call from Engineer 2, who says he’s just checked the job sheet and he’s not trained to deal with immersion heaters. What you need, guv, is a plumber who knows electrics, not a gas fitter.
Everybody back on the website, which is working again, miraculously.
Appointment 3 is arranged for Monday. Cold shower later, the engineer arrives on time, as promised. After another half hour in the attic he gets it going, but says if it breaks down again what we need is a plumber, not a gas fitter. No problem, he’s put all our details in the computer.
Two warmish showers later, it packs up again. Thermostat tripped. The Brass Monkeys are back in town.
Book yet another appointment, stressing that what we need is a plumber, not a gas wossname.
(All we need is a plumber, as the late Sly Stone almost sang on Dance To The Music.)
Yesterday morning, get a call from Engineer 4, a smashing chap called Nathan. He’s checked the job sheet, too, and he doesn’t do immersion heaters either. They should have sent a plumber, not, well you know the rest.
Nathan says he’ll come over, anyway, and help me navigate the infuriating ‘Press 1, etc’ switchboard so I can get the right engineer for the job. He can’t do it himself because of data protection rules, some hangover from the EU.
Thank goodness he did. After a couple of attempts, which involved me pressing all the wrong numbers and shouting a bit, especially after being asked to enter my date of birth on the keypad (why, for heaven’s sake?) he got me through to an operator. But only after I’d been told to press 3 if I’d had a bereavement. What? Made sense, though. By this stage, I’d lost the will to live.
Anyway, long story short, turns out that this was a job for Dyno-Rod!!
Eh? What’s Dyno-Rod got to do with it? Last time we had them out was when the drains backed up. Stray disposable nappy under next door’s patio, by all accounts. Apparently, they’re now part of the British Gas HomeCare operation and do immersion heaters. Who knew?
Half an hour later, I’m all fixed up with Dyno-Rod for tomorrow, but only after missing the first contender on Ken Bruce’s Popmaster, while hanging on the telephone (which I think was one of the tie-break questions. Blondie, since you ask.)
So it’ll be fixed on Friday then? Unlikely, explains Nathan, because the bod from Dyno-Rod won’t have the part on the van, he’ll have to come and have a look and then order it and who knows how long that might take.
Apparently, British Gas have been reorganising their system and there have been a few glitches. Quelle surprise.
Thanks for bearing with me, it was good to get this off my chest. And I’m sure some of you have been that soldier, too.
But I do want to stress that, by and large, the British Gas troops individually have been brilliant, especially Nathan and the barmaid from Little Britain, even if the system has conspired against me. They’re not to blame. If they were in charge I’d have hot water again by now.
I’d have given them 10 out of 10 on one of those irritating customer satisfaction surveys I always ignore, but I couldn’t work out how to fill it in on my phone. And while I could cheerfully recommend them to a friend, I’m afraid I can’t say the same for British Gas corporately.
No, the over-complicated, penny-pinching, computer-says -no system has let them, and me, down, another all-too-familiar symptom of Basket Case Britain.
And don’t get me started on British Telecom’s digital switch-over/fibre broadband fiasco, which I’ll probably get back to next week. It’ll keep.
At least it’s going to be Phew, What A Scorcher! weather again this weekend. Enjoy. It’s good this global warming, isn’t it?
Until next time, then, I’ll be the bloke being hosed down on the front drive, doing my best Brass Monkey impression.
Edward Fox using crutches to hide his assassin’s rifle in Day Of The Jackal
The cross-Channel migrant farce goes from bad to worse, as a bloke on crutches manages to evade the gendarmes and clamber into a dinghy bound for Kent.
With the recent sad passing of Freddie Forsyth, when I saw the photo I couldn’t help thinking of The Day Of The Jackal, with Edward Fox hiding his assassin’s rifle in his crutches and pretending to be an invalid – faithfully reproduced in the recent Eddie Redmayne remake.
So if you’re out with the dog this weekend and spot someone blasting the bejesus out of a melon hanging from a tree, you’ll know where he came from.
The latest hysterical climate change scare involves us all having to stop eating breakfast cereals as arable crops dry up.
According to Stanford University: ‘Corn in the USA could see as as much as a 40 per cent drop in production…’
Corn In The USA? Sounds like a Springsteen tribute band!
Loved the picture of Surkeir taking the knee to Donald Trump. He’s gone from George Floyd to Gillian Taylforth without missing a beat.
